Houston Trust Attorney

Create Trusts; Administer Trusts; Resolve Disputes

For a variety of reasons, many clients of Ford + Bergner LLP express an interest in creating trusts.  Their interests in trusts are driven by many objectives, but among those are desires to protect assets from creditors, to save estate taxes, to provide easy management of assets if someone becomes incapacitated, and to make gifts to minor children or grandchildren.  Trusts have become increasingly common for these purposes in recent years.

If you’re interested in these powerful, unique tools that sit at the crossroads of estate law and finance, a Houston trust attorney from Ford + Bergner LLP can help you explore your options and take the next steps.

From offices in Houston, Dallas and Austin, our attorneys have a focused mission to help Texans create estate plans to meet their needs.  Because our entire firm handles only estate and trust matters, we offer an atmosphere of trust and comfort for individuals and couples seeking solid estate planning, and we are fortunate to work with a wide variety of clients – from young couples just starting their lives together to older, more established families nearing retirement to small business owners working to plan for the future and successful business owners seeking to establish a transition plan for their company when they retire. Regardless of the size or complexity of the issues, our attorneys strive to provide the best quality of service to each client. Contact our respected team at 713-260-3926 to schedule a consultation.

What Types Of Trusts?

Trusts that our clients often choose and customize include:

• Testamentary trusts are trusts that are included in a will. Often, testamentary trusts are used to protect assets from the creditors of future generations, save estate taxes, and protect family members who may not be able to protect themselves.
• Revocable living trusts are trusts established to manage assets during life and then control the disposition of those assets upon death.
• Educational trusts are used to pay for educational costs for either college, graduate school, or even private schools for elementary or secondary education
• Irrevocable trusts to protect from creditors, make gifts to future generations of your family, etc.
• Special needs trusts for disabled adult children, other vulnerable family members or other named beneficiaries.
• Charitable trusts are created by clients who wish to benefit certain charities for years to come.

These are examples of the varieties of trusts that we help clients create and manage. This is not an exhaustive list, and other, more specialized types of trusts–for example, a Totten Trust–may also be available to suit your needs. As needed, our estate planning lawyers in Houston help people transfer the titles of assets to the trusts that they create. We also assist trustees in their duties of administering trusts.

Why Establish a Trust?

A trust, no matter what type best suits your needs, can be a powerful tool for estate planning and financial management alike. A well-designed and smartly implemented trust offers numerous advantages for individuals and their families. Whether you have significant wealth that needs a robust game plan for the future, would like to continue contributing to special causes beyond your time on Earth, or are simply trying to make the most of the family funds you’ve worked to build, a trust may be right for you.

If you need to protect your assets now, plan for your family’s future, or support charitable causes, a well-structured trust can help you achieve these goals with confidence and peace of mind. At Ford + Bergner LLP, our Houston trust attorneys understand the complexities and nuances of trust planning and administration. We are dedicated to helping our clients get the most out of their estate planning by leveraging all that trusts have to offer.

Trusts are such versatile tools because of the unique way in which they work. They are comparable to a bank account because they hold assets, but they go a step further and exist as a totally separate legal entity that can hold its own assets under the law. Think of how a business entity can have its own assets and properties that are not considered the individual property of the business owners; your trust can do much the same thing.

In short, this means assets placed in trust are no longer, strictly speaking, your personal property. While this can sound jarring to people unfamiliar with the concept, the arrangement offers many upsides. Your Houston trust lawyer from Ford + Bergner, LLP can help you fully understand the options available to you, as well as how trusts will help protect your assets, both now and beyond your own lifetime.

The Many Benefits of a Trust

Some of the key benefits you can unlock by establishing a trust as a core component of your estate plan include:

• Asset Protection – One of the major benefits of establishing a trust is the protection it offers from creditors, as well as anyone who might try to dispute your will for their own gain. By placing assets in an effectively designed trust, our clients can ensure that their wealth is safeguarded from various claims against their personal estate. This can offer peace of mind for individuals worried about their personal liabilities compromising their family wealth.
• Estate Tax Savings – Trusts can also be employed as a strategic tool for restructuring estate tax burdens. Your Houston trust attorney from Ford + Bergner LLP knows how to maximize the value of establishing a new trust, minimize the tax burden on your personal estate, and preserve more wealth for future generations.
• Providing for Minor Children – Trusts also offer a structured way to manage and distribute assets intended for minor children, such as inheritances for children and grandchildren. Unlike a will, which must be standardized in certain ways to remain valid, the terms of some types of trusts can be almost infinitely customized. As a simple example, if you don’t want your grandchildren to receive their inheritance until after they’ve successfully graduated high school or received a GED, you can build these stipulations into the trust itself.
• Planning for Emergencies – A smartly designed trust can also assist with the management of assets in the event that you are incapacitated in some way. Much like a proper last will and testament should name a qualified executor, every trust is overseen by an administrator, called a trustee. This trustee is a trustworthy individual (or hired professional) who is in charge of managing the entrusted assets. This offers our clients peace of mind in knowing that their financial affairs will be handled appropriately, even when they are unable to attend to them personally.
• Charitable Giving – For individuals and families with philanthropic goals, a charitable trust can be a great way to make the most of every dollar you give. A well-designed and sufficiently funded trust can even ensure that your estate is able to continue funding your causes and passions for years after you have left this Earth. Better yet, you don’t have to wait until your passing for a trust to go into effect, so you can see the results of your generous giving start to bear fruit during your own lifetime.

The Process of Creating a Trust in Houston, Texas

The process of creating a trust will look a bit different from person to person, depending on their individual needs and goals. No matter how complex or unique your own trust creation ideas might be, the world-class Houston trust lawyers at Ford + Bergner LLP would be honored to help guide you through every phase of the project and lead you to a successful outcome. Some of the main steps typically involved in this process will include:

1. Initial Consultation With Your Houston Trust Attorney – During the initial consultation, you and your prospective legal team will get to know more about one another and have a productive conversation about your goals for establishing a trust. By the end of a successful consultation, your attorney will have a solid understanding of your financial situation, family dynamics, and unique needs, and they should be starting to think about what sort of trust will suit your situation.
2. Drafting the Documents – Once you and your attorney have determined what sort of trust you will create, the various terms and details of the trust must be put into writing. Like many legal processes, this requires knowledge of highly specific and formalized language, so your attorney will take the lead. Trust documents can become quite dense, depending on the nature of the trust.  At a minimum, it must set forth important details such as the person who will administer the trust, the beneficiaries receiving the assets, and what conditions must be met for the disbursement of those assets to take place. It can take several drafts to finalize this document, but a reputable Houston trust lawyer, such as those from Ford + Bergner LLP, will always endeavor to make the revision and review process as transparent, efficient, collaborative, and cost-effective as possible.
3. Funding the Trust – Once the trust document has been finalized, it’s time to place assets into it. The process of transferring assets into a trust often involves additional paperwork. The team at Ford + Bergner LLP can ensure that all of this is handled in accordance with the law and that all assets are properly titled in the name of the trust, effectively removing them from your personal estate.
4. Ongoing Trust Administration – To work as effectively as possible, trusts require ongoing management after they have been established. Long after the process of creating and funding your trust has ended, the Houston trust lawyers at Ford + Bergner LLP can help you understand your responsibilities and options regarding trust administration.
5. Resolving Trust Disputes – Despite careful planning and the best intentions, disputes regarding trusts can sometimes arise. Whether it’s a disagreement over one of the terms of the trust, concerns about the actions of a trustee, issues with asset distribution, or some other conflict, the team at Ford + Bergner LLP can help. Our legal skills include advanced conflict resolution techniques to end conflicts swiftly, quietly, and in our client’s favor. 

Some of the more common types of trust disputes include a breach of fiduciary duty by a trustee, disagreements over the interpretation of trust terms, conflicts about how and when assets should be distributed, and challenges to the validity of the trust itself. For these reasons, the most important part of resolving trust disputes is to have a highly qualified attorney design and draft an air-tight trust in the first place.

Start the Conversation About Trusts That Fit Your Needs: Contact a Houston Trust Attorney

Now that you understand more about how trusts work in Texas–and, more importantly, how they work to help you protect your assets and provide for your family–it’s time to take the next step by scheduling a conversation with a Houston trust attorney. Ford + Bergner LLP is proud to serve as the premier estate planning firm for the Houston area and beyond. Allow our competent and friendly team to take the mystery and stress out of establishing a trust.

We offer a comprehensive range of trust establishment and administration services designed to make the trust process easier for you, whether you are establishing a trust of your own, have been named a trustee, or are a named beneficiary with concerns about a trust. From offering highly adept advice on which type of trust to create to helping trustees comply with all accounting and reporting rules, we can help with just about any trust-related legal issue you’re having in Houston.

Many lawyers are willing to offer help with trust issues, but Ford + Bergner LLP is focused exclusively on estate planning and trust administration issues, making us a top choice for Texans looking to start a trust. Our team of legal professionals is ready to help you create, modify or administer one or more trusts in Texas. 

To schedule a consultation, call 713-913-1854 or send an email inquiry.